Comparing Gravity To The Other Physical Forces Using Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 70):

The first category is the gravitational force. This force is universal, that is, every particle feels the force of gravity, according to its mass or energy. Gravity is the weakest of the four forces by a long way; it is so weak that we would not notice it at all were it not for two special properties that it has: it can act over large distances, and it is always attractive. This means that the very weak gravitational forces between the individual particles in two large bodies, such as the earth and the sun, can all add up to produce a significant force. The other three forces are either short range, or are sometimes attractive and sometimes repulsive, so they tend to cancel out.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, gravity and the cosmological expansion are the attractive and repulsive aspects of the same phenomenon.  In gravity, intervals of space are relatively contracted, and intervals of time are relatively expanded, whereas, in the cosmological expansion, intervals of space are relatively expanded, and intervals of time are relatively contracted.  Taken together, they resemble the other forces in this respect.

On the other hand, this unity differs from the other forces, in as much as gravity and the cosmological expansion are concerned with the interaction of matter-energy and space-time, whereas the other forces — the electromagnetic, and the strong and weak nuclear forces — are concerned with interactions of matter-energy only.